After School Special
by lenina20
Summary: My take on 4x10, based on the promo - It really is like The Breakfast Club, but with torture; three criminally-insane originals armed with splintered chair legs, forcing them to bleed out their deepest, most shameful secrets—or simply having fun. Ensemble (focuses on the originals); Klaus/Caroline-focused (canon-compliant; pre-romance); mentions of every ship that ever sailed.


**A/N: Wow, guys. I'm still overwhelmed by the response I got after I posted If my heart could beat. Thank you so much! **

**I hope that if you read this story, you'll like it as well, even though admitedly it is more gen-ish. This is ensemble and canon-compliant, even though it focuses mostly on Klaus/Caroline. Contains mentioned of violence - thus the rating, and it is loosely based on the promo for 4x10. So there will be mild spoilers in here.**

**Thank you all once again!**

* * *

;

;

;

;

Klaus is standing by the whiteboard, black marker in hand. With one hand behind his back, he writes:

_12 + 12 + 12 + 12_.

He turns to smile at the class. "Is this ringing any bells, children?"

Rebekah chuckles, clearly amused at the horror that pervades the scene. Caroline sends an evil glance her way, yet another, but her attention quickly snaps to Damon when unexpectedly he decides to play along.

"Oh, I know the answer, teacher. I'd raise my hand as you instructed by, you see—can't," he smirks, his usually devious trade-mark smile. "My hands seem to be staked to the wall for some reason."

Klaus's smile oozes off legitimate amusement—like he can't imagine anything else in the world he'd rather be doing right now, other than generalized mass-torture in the after-school hours. Caroline's stomach clenches (yet again) in a mixture of fear and guilt. All of this could have been prevented, if only—

"You're funny," Klaus says to Damon, as if the words meant the opposite of what they say.

Damon somehow manages a shrug, with the leg of a chair stabbed though his stomach, holding him two feet off the ground, and splintered ends of whatever furniture pieces Kol and Rebekah found and tore apart sticking out of his forearms, keeping him nailed to the wall. He endures the pain without a groan, and if Caroline had it in her she would admire him for it. But right now she can't focus on anything but the ghost memory of the screams coming out of Tyler's throat each time Kol allowed him to breathe, jerking his head out of the wolfsbane water—

—again and again and again for hours, while Rebekah toyed with the rest of them.

"Ask your dearest friend, my little brother over there," Damon insists, like he feels no pain at all. He barely flinches, nodding towards the chair where Stefan is sitting and locking his eyes with her brother's. "Remember Charlotte?"

Elena speaks up immediately. "Who's Charlotte?"

Caroline finds herself rolling her eyes against her better judgement. Elena's love sick fool routine is embarrassing at this point, besides also being deeply disturbing; but she can't let herself be played into antagonizing her friends. She knows that is what this bunch of psycho-originals want and no way in freaking hell Caroline is allowing them the pleasure of getting _that_. They won't turn on themselves. They can't. Even if Caroline wants to slap this brainwashed version of Elena, and there's a bitter taste in her throat and a low drumming in her heart because Stefan is simply sitting there quietly, after Klaus had warned, _Try and get your dear brother free, and the stake goes through his heart._

It might have been an empty threat—would Klaus really risk whatever sick bond joins him to Stefan by killing Damon?—but it still worked.

In the long game Klaus is playing, Damon is the disposable one.

Even if now he seems to be providing all the answers.

_Who is Charlotte?_

Stefan speaks, at last, his eyes cold but steady on Elena. "One of Damon's many deranged ex-girlfriends," he smirks. "This one spent the last seventy years counting all the bricks in New Orleans, because that is what Damon told her to do." Despite the hard expression, his voice comes out angry and heartbroken. Empty. Strange even to Caroline's ears, and she's been the one holding his hand all throughout this whole mess of Elena choosing to sleep with Damon because she is clearly brain-damaged. Stefan sounds like a complete stranger when he adds, "She fell in love with him, asked him to turn her, and he did. Then he grew tired and left her and she went mad. The perks of being sire-bonded and all it—"

Klaus is happy to cut off his rant, hitting the board with the end of the marker to draw attention back to himself. "Well, isn't that romantic?"

"Very much so," Damon agrees with a gasp, as Rebekah walks to stand by his side, immediately pushing the chair leg a little bit deeper into his entrails and the wall behind. Possibly in retribution for poor Charlotte, which hey, _nice thought_. "But the point is," Damon soldiers on through the pain, "I left New Orleans because I thought the sire bond was broken, as a pesky southern witch informed me it'd happen if I killed twelve people."

Elena's gasp comes up sort of unexpectedly. She's done little but whimper in Kol's arms since Klaus untied the vervain ropes holding her to the chair when he arrived. She's apparently too in love to fully understand that Damon _will_ live through the pain of being staked into the wall—that this is only Klaus being unusually indulgent and prolonging his siblings' fun for a little while. Taking revenge for the damage done to Stefan's honour, perhaps. Nothing compared to that time Rebekah tried to bleed him out after he got inside her head—like _she_ hasn't stopped repeating since she hung him on the wall, right by the spot where Stefan was hanging from already. Klaus had let Stefan go immediately. He had taken out the pencils stabbed into Elena's hands and forearms that were keeping her pinned to the desk, along with the vervain ropes around her wrists and ankles holding her down—

—no physical harm had come to Caroline at any time, in any way.

"Twelve people!" Klaus exclaims, and it's the clearly fake joy in his voice that jerks Caroline out of the still blurry memories of the evening's horrors. "Now, let me see, where have we seen _twelve people_ being sacrificed lately?"

Nobody answers. Nobody needs to, really, because they all know what everyone else is thinking. Twelve people killed when the members of the council were murdered through a not-so-accidental gas leak. Twelve hybrids killed, under the storm of Klaus's rage and the careful design of a city college professor.

12 + 12 + 12 + 12.

"I just came from your quirky pretty lake house, Elena, and I can assure you," Klaus continues after the heavy silence, "twelve werewolves will appear dead soon enough, whenever a migrant pack reaches the area—which I am sure it's being orchestrated as we speak. Then, as I am sure you've already guessed—"

"Twelve vampires."

Surprisingly, it's Stefan who finally says what they all are thinking. Like this is truly a brainstorming session in the Salvatores' living room to try and figure out how they can defeat whatever latest evil is haunting them. Which weirdly is exactly what it is—except the originals won't hesitate before torturing them for a little while before they all can start the team-work discussions—

"—but _why_?" Stefan insists, after the threat sinks in. "Only twelve human souls are needed to channel expression."

_Expression_.

To her credit, Elena asks first, dimly—"Expression?"—but Stefan isn't talking to Elena, not really, so it falls upon Caroline, the bitter task of processing the little information that is available to her, and spread the very much disturbing news.

"We have to call Bonnie," she says, at last.

Klaus's eyes are on her the minute she speaks. "So the cat didn't get your tongue after all, love."

She looks at him with as much loathing as she can, and really, how she wishes she had it in her to hit back. But she's too sad to be angry, still—

—_Do you know that she was ready to die that night, Tyler, the night you bit her?—_

—so she can do nothing but return his gaze in silence, in hatred; mutely defying him to quit the lame sarcastic jokes already and _do_ something instead. Either kill them all or let them go. Fly town and make sure their paths will never cross again—not once for as long as forever takes. Or grab her by force, damn it, and spirit her away with him. Take the choice away, so she can forever hate him for destroying her and forcefully taking what she wasn't willing to give. _Anything_ but keep on looking at her the way he always does—like she blinds him even in the middle of a crowded, bloodied classroom only lit by the ashy pale glow of a waning moon's light.

For the longest time nobody says a word after Klaus's snide comment. He holds Caroline's gaze in his; traps with his darkened eyes the words she might have said—

—before Rebekah grows impatient (yet again).

"This isn't your lovers' spat, Nik," she complains, twisting the chair leg she has stabbed through Damon's stomach a little bit deeper, making sure the splinters are piercing well into his guts, prolonging the slow internal bleeding excruciatingly. Rebekah's smile widens, so sweetly, as she turns her eyes from her brother to Stefan. "It's _mine_," she adds as perversely as she is able to—which is _a lot_, being Rebekah Mikaelson and all.

The mental process behind her torture is pretty straightforward. The more pain she inflicts on Damon, whom she hates, the more desperate Elena's pleas for mercy become. The louder Elena cries out, feeling the pain of her sire in the deepest corners of her soul—the angrier Stefan gets. The closer he walks to the edge; the fainter his self-control grows. The hotter the fire burns under his skin. The more fiercely the thirst scratches his throat.

The more impending the danger of Stefan the Ripper bursting out of the sweat-coated skin of _nice_ Stefan, Caroline's good friend.

There is a loud voice still sing-songing in Caroline's head—_we have to call Bonnie, we have to call Bonnie, we have to call Bonnie_—but right now her attention is focused on Stefan's pain. She made a promise to him. She would be there, always. She would help him keep control if he wasn't able just by himself. She has to do something now, she knows; in spite of the weight of Klaus's eyes on her, and Tyler's unconscious body lying there right in front of Kol and Elena, forgotten and useless like it's just a _thing_.

"Rebekah, please," her voice comes out faint but steady, anger boiling beneath the thick pain and the shuddering, superficial fear still stinging in her bones, "Stop it. You've already taken revenge for—"

"Caroline's right, little sister," Klaus interrupts her. Again. Of course. But this time his voice is firm, demanding as he glances at Stefan, eyes slightly narrowed. "You do like Stefan, remember? Don't do anything stupid that you might regret later."

Stefan smiles at Klaus, but he looks anything but grateful. His eyes move to Rebekah without stopping for a second on the hanging body of his brother. "Remember what we talked about clean slates, Rebekah?"

"Yes, I remember Stefan," she returns his smile. "You lied to me and manipulated me so you could find the cure for your precious Elena, who by the way doesn't seem to care a lick about you. She doesn't look even remotely interested in growing old and raising a family with you, it seems to me."

It's as carefully calculated a blow as every time she has twisted her improvised stake into Damon's entrails, but this time, Rebekah's aim surprisingly misses its target. Her own feelings are bubbling beneath her accusation—it's painfully obvious for everyone in the room. Kol snickers, Klaus smacks his lips, and Stefan's smile only grows more malicious, more foreign as it splits his usually calm and composed features.

Caroline knows she has to try again before Stefan leans in for a second, harder attack. Before she loses him for good. "Don't be stupid, Rebekah," she insists. "Don't risk it. April likes you, doesn't she? She woke you up, and she has been—"

"April wants Matt. She's only being nice because—"

Caroline audibly groans. "Trust issues, much? You really are messed up, aren't you?" She's addressing Rebekah, but her words don't refer just to her. Damned originals and their insecurity-induced bursts of bloody rampage. "_Really_," she snorts, fear and pain forgotten for a second. "Give up already. I know Matt. He's not interested, believe me. He can't handle this—" Her finger draws a circle on the air, pointing to all of them—"trust me. But April does like you for some mysterious reason—"

Rebekah's maleficent laugh shuts her up on the spot. "How dare _you_ compare yourself to _me_? You little, insignificant minx. Matt didn't want you because you are nothing but an empty-headed little slu—"

The marker, flying with supernatural speed across the classroom, hits her right in the forehead—effortlessly tearing the skin apart. Blood spills down her nose for a couple of seconds before she heals, almost instantaneously. Caroline is expecting Rebekah to scream, to tear the chair leg out of Damon's stomach and throw it across the room at her brother—or Caroline. But she doesn't. Instead she hangs her head in shame, as if ready to admit defeat. After her string of insults, Caroline feels almost vindicated—except she can't feel that way. Klaus defending her honour should make her feel nothing but nausea, especially when his gallant outburst of violence is followed by his younger brother's amused, evil little laugh.

"Your love entanglements are truly entertaining," Kol says. "I admit that, deluded as our little sister may be, Niklaus, her endless heartache does pay off when she channels the pain into such elaborate forms of torture."

Rebekah had staked Stefan into the wall first. Then Elena. Then Damon, when he had come to the rescue. Elena had been the first one she had taken off the wall like one takes down a painting. "Wouldn't want that chair leg brushing the side of your heart on accident, Elena. Nik would be so furious," she'd said with a smile.

Kol's gloved hands had tied the vervain robes around her wrists and ankles before he'd stuck two perfectly aligned strings of pencils on the back of her hands and up her forearms. Caroline had been horrified at Elena's pained whimpers, but as soon as Kol had allowed a nearly unconscious Tyler to gasp in a breath out of the wolfsbane water, Rebekah had sunk her hand into his chest to wrap her fingers around Tyler's heart, effectively keeping Caroline immobile on her chair while her friends were being tortured right in front of her eyes.

Stefan had been left down the second Klaus had finally walked into the classroom—long after dusk had fallen.

Kol and Rebekah had been going at it since early in the afternoon.

Only Rebekah is now showing signs of exertion.

With one hand, Kol's twirling the pool cue he'd brought to use on Damon and Stefan in addition to the chairs they broke—like he's _still_ itching to sink it into someone's heart. Caroline shivers when his dead cold smile turns towards her, Elena sill squirming uselessly in his other arm. "Who's Bonnie?" he asks.

Kol had been seriously disappointed that his brother's instructions for the evening hadn't included the murder of anyone. Rebekah had been unrelenting when Kol had protested, the tip of his cue ghosting right over Da¬mon's heart, "Niklaus doesn't give a damn about this one."

It was true¬—but it is also true that in spite of their incessant fighting over Elena, killing Damon is something Stefan would never forgive. Rebekah had explained it to Kol, prompting Stefan to dare deny her words, but Stefan had remained silent and seemingly unaffected, while Kol had decided to focus his malice on Caroline instead, for the time being. He'd approached her on slow, deliberate steps, cupping her cheek and running his thumb over her cheek. "All of this because of you, you tasty little thing" he'd whispered.

Caroline hadn't hesitated to spit right into his devious eyes.

In less than half a second Kol's hand had moved from her cheek to her neck, iron fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. He hadn't squeezed; he hadn't hurt her at all—but it was obvious in the strength of his grip that, if he wanted to—before she had time to realize it—he'd have her bloody larynx in his hand, torn away from neck and bleeding all over the classroom floor.

"Kol," Rebekah had warned him, twisting the chair leg stabbing Stefan clockwise and counter-clockwise alternatively. "Nik will tear you limb from limb and hide every little piece of you in a different continent—in places where you will never find whatever part of your body you miss the most."

He had let her go immediately, but his fingers had caressed the skin of her neck sickeningly as he pulled away, eyes narrowed as he'd said, "I do hope that by the time you finally decide to open those pretty long legs of yours for my brother, you will not disappoint him." His eyes were twinkling terrifyingly, and he'd pretended to tremble, mocking her. "I _shudder_ to think of what he might do to you if you do disappoint him."

Caroline had tasted the venom on his words. He only wanted to scare her, she knew; to make her squirm in the only way he was allowed to. His usual erratic blood-thirsty impulses were being unnaturally repressed by his brother's authority. His power was being undermined, restricted. Kol was obviously desperate to hurt her. The one off-limits girl Klaus had taken a fancy to. Caroline could feel it then, and she can still fee it now—the longing of the beast underneath, starving to tear her apart.

_Who's Bonnie_?

She refuses to answer him.

She turns her eyes away, silently chastising herself when her elusive glance lands on Klaus's questioning look. He seems to suspect something¬¬—like he doesn't trust Kol, not ever; and Caroline's repulsion is too evident to be a coincidence.

He steels his glance when he turns from her eyes to look at Kol. "Bonnie's the  
Bennet witch that helped our dear mother try and kill us. I'm sure you met her," he says, matter-of-factly. But his eyes are cold and hard and Caroline would really hate it, if that look was meant for her. "But she's also the witch who put me in the Lockwood boy's body right before our mother's hunter stabbed my heart with the indestructible white-oak stake, so—" He turns back to look at Caroline, and his yes immediately soften. Caroline _really_ hates herself for the relief that surges through her cold dead veins. "Why should we call her, love?"

_Expression_, Caroline remembers.

That creepy professor asshole—she knew it. She knew he was bad news from the moment that Bonnie started dodging her friends to spend time with him. She tries to put order into her messy, fearful thoughts—tries to find the right words to say what she wants to say in a quick, efficient way that can cut through Elena's whimpering and Damon's groaning and Rebekah's spite and Stefan's indifference—

¬—but Kol gets in her way, again. He kicks Tyler's shoulder without placing any apparent strength behind the gesture, yet Tyler's unconscious body rolls away from him like he's weightless. Caroline loses whatever little focus she had acquired; she barely registers Kol's disdainful question—"This body?" He accentuates his contempt with a grimace, like he's truly disgusted by his brother's debasement.

Klaus shrugs. "He's a hybrid."

A newborn hybrid is not stronger or more powerful than an original vampire, but he can stand his ground on a fight. He had been still conscious when Klaus had finally arrived from Elena's lake house, after hours of Kol's extremely creative torture. He was weakened, yet impossibly, strangely strong as he had still resisted Klaus's very own version of agonising torment.

It had consisted only of words.

Words about Tyler's loneliness—the death of his mother; his lonesome existence as the only remaining hybrid.

The solitary fate they both now shared.

It was a moot point, with Klaus's very much alive family there in the room, torturing and rampaging on his instructions, which they followed only out of a misplaced, yet genuine sense of loyalty.

So Caroline had tried to make up for it. "He's not alone. He has me," she had insisted.

Tyler has me and you don't, she had meant.

It had taken Klaus no effort at all to render her point moot, too.

He had only smiled at her, a wide happy grin. "But he doesn't, love, don't you see? Not anymore. The guilt is eating him alive. He trusted his wolf lady over you, sweetheart, and see how that turned out. He won't ever forgive himself now."

It was as cruel as Caroline ever thought him capable of. He wouldn't hurt her—wouldn't kill the thing Tyler would miss the most, next to his mother. But he had all the time, all the patience, and all the bad blood in the world to drive such an insurmountable grudge between them that Tyler would eventually lose her, too. Irreparably. And Caroline couldn't do anything about it, because Klaus was right. The guilt would tear Tyler apart—she had known then. Even before Klaus had said—

"Remember, Tyler, when you told me that true love was stronger than fake loyalty?" Klaus's nauseatingly sweet smile had frozen Caroline's borrowed blood in her veins. His eyes were glistening with the sort of excitement that can be _smelled_ in the air. "And yet when I told you to bite her… you _did_."

It had all spun out of control then.

—_I had to convince her that there are things in this world worth living eternally for, mate, and I am afraid you aren't one of the things that made Caroline change her mind about dying at just eighteen—_

She had begged him to stop, but too feebly. She'd known she had no right to feel betrayed by Klaus talking about that night; she had no right to remember then, in the middle of her friends' torture, the thick rich taste of Klaus's blood on her tongue, the warmth of his arms around her, his strong hand cradling her head against his chest while she drank him in.

"Am I lying?" Klaus had challenged her.

Caroline couldn't say a word.

She had shamefully looked away¬. She had let Klaus go on torturing Tyler, no blood or violence or wolfsbane water needed—until he had finally taken mercy on him, relenting.

He had snapped Tyler's spine in two to allow him time to rest.

Kol had been outraged. "Why haven't you killed him!?"

"I'm fond of him. He was my first," Klaus had simply said.

It was the most terrible thing Caroline had ever heard coming out of his mouth, right after what he had put Tyler through. It would have been fine, if Klaus had meant the words as a cruel joke. But _no_. The terrible thing was the blatant honestly in his eyes. He had made the hybrids because he didn't want to be alone. Tyler had never hesitated to remind him.

It was _all_ so terrible.

Yet in the middle of the horror coursing through her system, Caroline had been so relived to see Klaus snapping Tyler's spine and then twisting his head around for good measure. She had been sure for a moment there that Klaus was going to rip Tyler's heart out. Or cut off his head with his teeth.

_He's a hybrid_.

Klaus had chosen the body that was the most similar to his.

He had a significant number of hybrids at his disposal, but Tyler was the one who was emotionally invested in his survival. The life of all his friends depended on the success of Klaus's little trick. Caroline had never thought much about it, but now—

—Kol's terrible eyes are back on her. "From what I've gathered from this little after-school party, the dog is your boyfriend, right?"

She doesn't reply, of course; but Kol doesn't really need an answer to do the best he can at mortifying anyone he can. Caroline breathes in, raising her eyes in defiance, just as Kol smirks. "And my brother was in his body?" His eyes are sparking like Christmas lights, brimming with ill-felt amusement. "_Kinky_," he laughs. "Honestly, I couldn't have guessed you had it in you, sweet Caroline."

Funny how, of all the people in the classroom, Caroline only feels even remotely close to comfortable looking at Klaus. His smile is soft and surprisingly warm. "I'm sorry, love. I shouldn't have wasted the marker on my sister."

She feels tempted to return his smile, grateful for the sympathy because, hey, remember that time he was in her boyfriend's body and they made out? It's been surprisingly easy, to forget about that, you see. He had felt exactly like Tyler does, no muscle memory of _him_ pressed against hers, his lips tight on hers as her tongue rolled into his mouth¬—so warm and welcoming and familiar for a second or two, before he pulled her away. Such a true gentleman move that Caroline feels like sharing.

Kol would be scandalized to learn his brother hadn't taken advantage of the very favourable circumstances.

Fortunately for her, Klaus had grown tired of being in Tyler's body soon enough, and as soon as Ric had stopped being a threat, he had forced Bonnie to undo the spell—none of her friends had ever even wondered whether something might have happened while Klaus had taken residence in Tyler's body. No need to explain anything, or ever having to think about it again, really.

Unless her best friend the Bennet witch loses all of her magic abilities as a result of her dealings with the devil, and she has to resort to a new kind of magic—

—well, damn Kol and his insidious comments, and damn Rebekah's derisive snorts, and Damon's already closed eyes as he too begins to slip into unconsciousness. Elena is calling out his name, again; but Caroline doesn't care, not right now.

"Bonnie is learning how to practise expression," she finally says, loud, her hands hitting the desk she's sitting at to draw attention to her words. "Professor Shane is teaching her."

It works, if anything so Elena finally comes back to earth and realizes what is going on. She raises her eyes to look at Caroline, alarm shining in her glistening eyes.

_Why_?" Stefan had asked, _Only twelve human souls are needed to challenge expression._

Caroline had mentioned Bonnie; Klaus had been distracted. One thing led to another. No one had answered Stefan's question, but someone has to, now. Caroline doesn't really understand what has gotten in Elena's head—she had been right there with Caroline when Bonnie had mentioned expression. Was she so absorbed in her own messed-up sire-bonded head that she hadn't realized what it means, what Klaus and Stefan were discussing?

Bonnie was practising a kind of magic for which human souls had to be sacrificed.

It takes her longer than it should have to notice it, but as at last Caroline overcomes her general state of indignation towards her friend, long enough to finally look at her, for real, she realizes. It's obvious in the way Elena is looking at the floor now, eyes away from Caroline, and from the spot on the wall where Damon is still hanging, literally. She knows something Caroline doesn't.

Something neither Klaus, nor Stefan know, either.

"Now," Klaus finally speaks, eyes steady on Stefan, "it seems like our know-it-all witchcraft intellectual not only has the intention, but also the means to conjure up the darkest, most powerful form of magic in existence. The question I suppose is—why would a regular city college professor in pursuit of a purely academic quest be interested in the resurrection of the flesh?"

It hits the classroom like a bomb. _The resurrection of the flesh_.

Stefan frowns, the betrayal of Elena and his brother forgotten for a second at last. Kol looks genuinely interested, and not simply mildly entertained, as he has looked for most of the evening. Rebekah has forgotten all about twisting the chair leg around Damon's entrails, now that he looks like he's finally had enough.

The pieces begin to fall into place one by one.

Professor Shane manipulated them to get the hybrids killed by Klaus—they knew that much already. As Damon had suspected from the beginning, he was also behind the mass-murder of the council members. He was also teaching Bonnie a kind of magic that could channel the deaths of as many as twelve souls for every species, human and supernatural alike—so as to resurrect the dead. But _who_? Why? The silence in the classroom is so thick, so heavy that when Damon's weakened voice cuts through the mist of unasked question, it resounds like a loose bull crashing into a China shop.

"Silas."

Silas.

The name says nothing to Caroline, but it obviously rings more than a bell for the originals. Kol whistles. Rebekah gasps. And Klaus, more to his usually dignified style, moves to sit on the teacher's desk, clasped hands resting on his knees. "Well," he says, "I can't say I saw that one coming, to be completely honest—I always thought those kinds of legends about the cure were only mindless folklore."

And again, no one says anything after that¬—not for a long while.

Surprisingly, the first sound that crosses the room is Tyler's loud gasp as he begins to wake up.

It takes Caroline a second too long to realize it is in fact Tyler's grunting that she hears, but when she does, she runs to him immediately. Nobody stops her this time, but Kol doesn't shy away from kicking Tyler's head one last time, for good measure; and it takes all the effort that Caroline can gather to just look evilly at him from where she is standing, while she struggles to ignore the almost painful pressure of Klaus's eyes on her as she tends to Tyler's state of confusion. After the last thing he had heard—the last thing he had possibly thought¬—right before Klaus finally knocked him out—

—_It wasn't the bite, mate. That had an easy solution. It was the betrayal. So much for true love, huh? You_bit_her, Tyler. You made her not want to live anymore—_

Caroline runs her fingers through Tyler's short crisp hair, but as soon as he can stand up by himself, stumbling on his feet, he moves away from her. Klaus smiles, and Kol wastes no time burying his free arm in Tyler's chest, once again wrapping his hand around Tyler's weakened heart. He speaks nonchalantly to his brother, "What shall we do about the ancient warlock, then?"

Klaus stands up from the desk, quickly clasping his hands behind his back as he speaks, each word slow and deliberate. "Well, I say we have two options here. Either we kill the scheming professor and forget all of this ever happened, let Silas rest in peace as he should be—"

"—and lose the cure forever," Stefan interrupts.

Klaus looks annoyed to be cut off mid-sentence, but except for a slight pull of his brows, it's barely noticeable. "Or we play along," he continues unaffected. "We let him believe he holds the upper hand and we wait for him to lead us to Silas's grave and lift the curse cast by the spurned witch he didn't love—"

"—and we lose Bonnie to expression," Stefan interrupts, again.

This time, Klaus's annoyance is evident. "Do you think I care about the bloody witch, Stefan? Let me clarify that for you, I don't. I don't care that the witch lives or dies or becomes a banshee. But I known now that you and your friends have bothered to include me in your little club, that there is no way we are getting the cure without lifting the curse that Silas's witch cast on him. Now, for the resurrection part of the equation, Professor Shane seems to be working on the assumption that Silas took the cure, _ergo_ he has the cure with him in his grave. And he obviously wants to resurrect him after the curse is lifted. Maybe we can avoid this last part, if we can control the witch" he adds with a grimace denoting his inconvenience. "It wouldn't be the best of news for us if the most ancient creature in the world was awakened and somehow managed to grab a hold of the cure. I'm most certain he'd have no qualms in using it as the Five intended to use it originally and, one may argue, as what the cure truly is."

After the long speech, the classroom falls into silence once again. But unexpectedly, clearly due to Rebekah's slacking in her task of torturing him to near death, Damon seems to have quickly recovered his usually annoying-as-hell mojo. He asks with his eyes wide open: "And what, oh wise original hybrid, might that true purpose of the cure _really_ be?"

"Clearly not to cure your pathetic girlfriend," Rebekah spats, her hand once again twisting the chair leg into Damon's stomach viscously, making up for her lack of perseverance so everyone can see how much she regrets her previous negligence.

But Klaus is determined to curb her enthusiasm. "Time to let go, Rebekah," he commands, walking towards them and liberating Damon from Rebekah's torturous grip. He takes the improvised stake sticking out of Damon's stomach out of the wall, but not really out of Damon. He holds it in his hand, in case Damon chooses to misbehave while Klaus also takes out the chair legs pinning his arms to the wall to keep him immobilized.

"A weapon," he finally answers hauntingly, as he finally lets Damon go.

A weapon.

Imagine _that_. So much for the cure being the answer to all their prayers, right?

It wouldn't even need to be unleashed onto all of them, whatever the cure actually is. It would be more than enough, just making _them_ mortal. The originals. Even if it only were to be used against Klaus—

—they all would be dead in an hour.

So that is that.

Slowly—someone who didn't know better could say carefully—Kol takes his hand out of Tyler's chest and lets Elena go. "Well," he says with a pointed smirk, "so now that we are forced to work together to avoid extinction, I suppose there is really no reason to mistrust each other, is there?"

Elena is in Damon's arms already, and they are both ignoring everyone else in the room. Caroline flashes to Stefan's side on an instant, not thinking twice about it before she entwines their fingers together. She barely registers the rush of air in the classroom when Tyler flashes out without a look thrown their way—he never cared about the cure and he doesn't now. They might all die, yes, but hasn't he lost everything he cared about already? If having they all die means that Klaus will die as well—

—Caroline forces her thoughts to stop. She doesn't want to believe that Tyler can hate like that. Not even Klaus.

Who of course is smiling at her, so sweetly; nodding at hers and Stefan's joined hands when he says with a wide grin, "Class dismissed."

;

;

;

;  
.end

* * *

**Thank you all so much for reading! I hope you liked it!**


End file.
